Sunday, May 03, 2009

There aren't too many bands that give us the chance to see them 3 times in less than 5 weeks, so it's really nice that one of them is our favorite, Umphrey's McGee.

Less than 18 hours after Rob saw Umphrey's play late night in New Orleans, we met up with our friends Paul, Bart, Tracye and Nikki to see them at the Lyric Theatre in Oxford.

The crowd at The Lyric was much more agreeable than the one at the recent Wilco show that Rob attended with Paul and Bart, which was over-filled and over-drunk.

It was nice to see that the band's new stage arrangement seems to be permanent, with Joel Cummings having relocated his keyboards from stage-left to stage-right. Perhaps the most tangible result of this is to put Brendan at center-stage, instead of his former position at the far-right. This works out really well, since Brendan is pretty much the heart and soul of the band.

As usual, the band put on a killer show, though maybe not quite as high up the scale as their recent March 28 show in Memphis.

They kicked things off with "Jazz Odyssey", which is not really a song but rather a sort of groove-based improv at the beginning of a set. This dropped smoothly into the Umphrey's classic chestnut "August", which quickly spawned a huge jam that ranged from dark, swirling psychedelia through some high-energy, Iron Maiden-style guitar harmonics-jamming and finally back into some dreamy Pink Floyd-like improv. They were already in full-on mind-melt mode! The jam eventually segued slickly into the old-school Umphrey's rocker "Resolution", which was also quite a remarkable version, featuring a full-on instrumental rendition of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" that started right after the first verse and built into another exhilarating jam. Eventually "Resolution" was resolved with a second verse and a wonderfully hip-shaking outro that had Ryan, Joel and Jake laying down some enormously funky licks. You could practically tell that these guys had just come from New Orleans the night before! The segue from the funk-breakdown back into the finale of "August" was absolutely spot-on, and Brendan wrapped up the "August" sandwich with a gorgeous, mellifluous climax. Whew!

Next up was some more dirty funk with "The Fuzz", a tongue-in-cheek lament on police persecution that kept the crowd moving and grooving. This sequed into a nicely done cover of Pink Floyd's "Time/Breathe Reprise", featuring one of Jake's striking David Gilmour impressions on lead guitar. Joel kept the "Dark Side" flow going with the piano intro to "Great Gig in the Sky", including the spoken word parts, but it was just a tease as the song never fully materialized.

Instead it was time for the deep, rootsy reggae of "FF". Written to sound as if it could be a Bob Marley cover, "FF" features Brendan yearning for the carefree days of childhood, as well as another excursion led by Ryan and Joel into goopy, dripping funkiness. In typical Umphrey's fashion, the outro jam quickly left behind the reggae groove and shifted into a climactic techno-rock jam that built and built on top of the unmistakable riff from Ozzy Osbourne's classic "Crazy Train". Finally, the "Crazy Train" riff deconstructed into the opening notes of the prog-epic "Bridgeless", which capped off the first set with a huge crescendo.

The second set got off to a seriously hard-rocking start with "Der Bluten Kat", which is comprised of several distinct sections and generally features close to 20 minutes of furious jamming at the end. This version took a wonderfully psychedelic-tinged detour into the Sgt. Pepper-esque "Made To Measure" from the new Mantis CD, before explosively returning to the raging conclusion of "Der Bluten Kat".

Then it was time to lighten the mood with another foray into reggae, though the breezy "Partyin' Peeps" yielded yet another big jam with yet another frenetic crescendo.

The meat of the second set arrived in the form of the heady, proggish, mostly instrumental "JaJunk", a lurching, mid-tempo guitar piece that seems to summon the best aspects of the bands Television and King Crimson. An angular techno-ish jam emerged and gradually led away from the "JaJunk" themes and eventually into "Slacker", Brendan's ode to counterculture individualism in the face of a judgmental society.

The radio-friendly "Intention's Clear" provided an excellent showcase of the band's unique pop sensibilities and complex dual-guitar attack, though they kept this version rather succinct, quickly devolving into another booty-shaking funk jam full of head-spinning syncopations between the crunching guitars, smooth organ and sneaky rhythm section. A familiar theme developed, and sure enough the funk jam morphed into the funk instrumental "Professor Wormbog". This song usually features a little silly section at the end of the head, such as the a capella "Zoom zoom zoom zaya" from the Boyz II Men song "Motownphilly" that they dropped into the 3/28/09 Memphis version we saw a couple months ago. This time all the instruments dropped out except Joel on the piano, tickling the ivories to that oh-so-familiar lush piano intro to Motley Crue's classic skating rink ballad, "Home Sweet Home". Sure enough they did the whole song, Jake on the vocals and contributing an absolutely blistering solo that blew away any guitar solo you'd hear at an actual Motley Crue show. Then, right back into the reprise of "Professor Wormbog", which surprisingly ended the set. Of course we'd forgotten about Oxford's midnight curfew on Saturdays. (You can't be selling alcohol at all on Sunday around here!)

For the encore they picked up right in the middle of the epic "JaJunk", which was unfinished from the second set, taking us on another wild prog ride and into another blazing guitar solo meltdown-crescendo, before leaving us once again pumping our fists and gasping for air. But of course, that's what we came for!

With the recent crowning of Umphrey's McGee as our favorite band, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet up with some old friends at one of their concerts in New Orleans. So, I left school Friday afternoon at 3pm and drove straight down to the Crescent City, arriving at Ninja Sushi around 9:30 to meet up with Mike and some of his diving buddies.

Mike's a long time friend, and we both visited New Orleans for the first time together in 1996 to see Phish at Jazz Fest. (We weren't so into the rest of the festival back in those days.) How ironic that here we were again, in New Orleans to see a hard-rocking jam-band in the middle of Jazz Fest, pretty much blowing off the rest of the festival.

It was also great to get a groove on with Greg and Ellen from San Francisco.

Long-time readers may recognize Ellen as the MC at our San Francisco wedding party back in 2005.

As for the band, they were in fine form, as usual. With this being a "late night" show during the 2nd weekend of Jazz Fest, the music started really late (2:15am) and ended really early (5:15am). That's how we roll in New Orleans!

This show featured a notable change in the band's stage arrangement. Traditionally, Joel (the keyboard player) has always been on the left side of the stage, but now he's moved over to the right side, leaving Jake all alone to the left.

Brendan is now more center-stage, instead of to the far right like he used to be. This new arrangement has a certain logic to it, since Brendan is the main singer/songwriter and pretty much the heart and soul of the band.

As usual, Jake and Brendan blew up some furious dual-guitar crescendos.

With this having been such a festive late-night show, I'll make no attempt at a review, other than to mention that they played 2 covers I'd never heard them do before: "That's All" by the Phil Collins version of Genesis, and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" by the Rolling Stones.

Notes:* with Baba O'Riley jams** with Stairway to Heaven tease$ with Young Lust and Voodoo Chile teases# with Gz & Hustlas jam, playing along with PA music$$ with Immigrant Song intro and Miss Tinkle's Overture teases

=======================================================

The next morning after a few hours sleep, I hit the road without seeing any more of New Orleans, during one of my favorite music festivals. Why would I do that? Umphrey's McGee was playing again the next night in my new hometown, Oxford, and I sure wasn't going to miss that!

New Blogger Layout

Unfortunately the "Blog Archive" feature (above) on Blogger's new layout is totally lame. If you miss the sidebar navigation system we used to have on this blog, go here to see the new and improved version.